Breakfast Topic: Is WoW a shameful thing?

A fellow student in my EMT class asked me what I blogged about recently, and I said what I usually say: "Video games, *in a lower voice* particularly World Of Warcraft." Instead of the usual, "Huh, must be nice to get paid to play games," she gasped and said "World of Warcraft! I'm so totally addicted to that game!" And she started telling me, in hushed tones, that she had a low-level undead warlock and had only been playing for a couple of weeks but loved it so much. I told her I had a 70 rogue but had been playing for ... a while, let's just say.

In the middle of this conversation, I realized that we were speaking in whispers and had excited looks on our faces, as if we were crackheads who had found a fellow addict. And as soon as someone looked our way we stopped our conversation and reddened. Upon further introspection (it was a long, long class), I found that despite having played video games most of my life, I was still ashamed of playing WoW. I have a social life, I live in my own apartment, and heck, I even essentially get paid to play -- but I still have trouble admitting that I play an MMORPG.

How about you? Are you ashamed to play WoW, or embarassed by how much time you've spent on it? Or do you consider it just a hobby like any other?